Poldark, series 4 episode 5 review: the parting of our key couples left a melancholy tinge

Farewell then, Reverend Osborne Whitworth. You were an ungodly creature: a philandering foot fetishist and an abuser who turned viewers’ stomachs with your odious behaviour. Now you’ve been beaten with a candlestick and dragged along by a bolting horse until you bounced off some trees and died. It couldn’t have happened to a nastier clergyman.

Poldark (BBC One) galloped into the home stretch of its fourth series with its second character death in consecutive episodes, although few will have shed a tear for vile vicar Ossie (Christian Brassington).  Mild-mannered Arthur (Will Merrick) was driven into a murderous rage when he discovered wife Rowella (Esme Coy) had been sleeping with her lecherous brother-in-law. He only knocked the cleric off his mount – but with Ossie’s foot stuck in the stirrup and the horse spooked, it was enough. 

Lady Whitworth (Rebecca Front, relishing the chance to play a panto villain) promised not to rest until she found her son’s murderer. A word too for Brassington’s brilliant portrayal. When Whitworth was played by Christopher Biggins in the Seventies, he was dubbed “the most hated man on television”. Brassington has filled his predecessor’s sizeable breeches with aplomb, putting on two stone for the part and bringing the oleaginous character to vivid life. Ossie won’t be missed but Brassington will.

In Westminster, the efforts of Ross Poldark (Aidan Turner) to help the starving poor caught the attention of the Prime Minister (Edward Bennett). Pitt the Younger, meet Poldark the Moodier. Splitting the action between Cornwall and London has caused the drama to sag, with back-and-forth journeys and lovelorn letters becoming repetitive. The parting of two key couples – Ross and Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson), Caroline (Gabriella Wilde) and Dwight Enys (Luke Norris) – has lent a melancholy tinge and mood of foreboding. 

Dr Dwight would doubtless prescribe Cornish air – not just for the characters but to rejuvenate the series as a whole.